


Rolling Thunder

by PhantomStutter



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Sweet, romantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 02:09:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16053230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhantomStutter/pseuds/PhantomStutter
Summary: The laundry was late, but she didn't mind.It was a lot, put off until then, but she didn't mind.Gohan wanted a story, though she didn't didn't know why, she didn't mind.Piccolo read her boys a story... and she didn't mind.





	Rolling Thunder

The dryer rumbled and tumbled. Dancing on the linoleum floor with a vengeance. Chi-Chi thought of a tune that would best fit the unfamiliar rhythm as she gently picked up the articles of clothing one by one, and folding them like clockwork. Placing them in piles of what goes to who on the table next to her. The cloth filled with a comfortable warmth that hadn’t faded when dug them from the dryer just moments before and each touch was its own bliss. The basket was almost through, though. Socks and a hand towel were the only occupants in the lonely little basket.

Her worn, pale hand picked up the tiniest sock in the basket. A warm smile spread across her instantly. Her baby boy, half a year old, filled her whole body with the warmest type of feelings. It ran up her spine and swelled into her chest.

“This is what book you want?”

The deep bass of Piccolo’s voice snapped her attention back to the present. Her head turned to the hallway mirror that stood on the wall opposite from the from. Gohan’s wall, painted that deep purple he so desperately wanted, was all that could be seen from that angle. Shadows plastered to the wall.

“I’m, like, a thousand percent sure!” Gohan had tried to keep the cracks from his voice. Her other, older baby boy was going through puberty. Hitting him like a solar flare. 

She heard the Namekian hum deep in his chest. It always reminded her of the dinosaurs her dad took her to see when she was young. A zoo. The rumbles that they made that shook her core. That she could feel deep in her chest, reminded her of… him. 

He signed a defeated sigh. One not too unlike her own. “Fine, Brat. Get in bed.”

Chi-Chi balled up the sock up in her hands as she slowly shuffled herself to the entrance to the laundry room. More of the scene became known to her: Gohan was settling into his covers and fluffing up his pillows; Piccolo was trying to fit his tall body into a rocking chair that was dragged from the nursery and failing miserably at it; Goten was crooked in the arm of the Namekian and suckling on his pacifier. 

Not once did the baby look uncomfortable as Piccolo’s not-so-gracefully adjusted to the chair. His large, onyx eyes never one leaving the Namekian’s face.

Disgruntled, Piccolo finally settled in. His legs kicked out and crossed in front of him. Huffing, he reached down and came up with an old, blue book that even she had as a child. A nursery book filled with stories of every kind. She use to read that to Gohan before….before everything changed when he was four. 

They hadn’t touched it since.

“Doesn’t matter which story,” Gohan piped up before Piccolo even had a chance to open the cover.

Piccolo rose an eye ridge. He poked a claw into the middle of the book and opened the pages with one hand. No way could he have gotten lucky enough to open right at the beginning of a story but...he didn’t turn another page.

Contrary to how he usually is or… well… how she thinks how the man usually is, his voice was quiet. Like thunder rolling through the hills or a soft drum playing out the end of a orchestration. 

Chi-Chi turned away from the mirror. The way his eyes softened and his shoulders fell….it was too much for her to handle in that moment. Instead, she pressed her head to the wall behind her and closed her eyes. Feeling the weight of his voice as he told the story. 

She tried to actually listen to the story, honestly she did, but it always came back to his voice. How she could swear she could feel how hot his breath was. How his chest would feel through his shirt…

She clamped her eyes harder. A problem she’d had for too long now. Feelings she...shouldn’t be having but, had. She couldn’t stop herself from doing it though. And in that moment, well, she didn’t want to stop. Her fingers caressed the itty bitty sock that had crumpled in her hand and she remembered how he held her baby and she smiled.

In a split moment, Chi-Chi was in peace. A calm that she hadn’t felt in, if she was being honest to herself, hadn’t felt in a long time. Hadn’t felt she needed calm. Her deceased husband always had the house in a spin and she, herself, felt it necessary to never once plan for a calm moment in her life. That’s just what a housewife had to do, she had to tell herself multiple times over. It was nice, though, to have it now.

And with a deep inhale, she opened her eyes. Everything strikingly quiet and confusingly blurry. She blinked her vision back to focus and found herself sitting in the rocking chair. A thick quilt sitting heavily on her person. She turned her to Gohan’s bed, where her little boy was curled up under the covers like a kitten in slippers. His bed stand light turned onto the dimmest setting. Chi-Chi wiped the sleep from her eyes and tentatively stood onto her feet.  
She didn’t remember sitting down or falling asleep. Scratching her head and shaking off the sleep, she wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and kissed her son on his head before turning off the lights. Stifling a yawn, she waddled out of the room and into the hall.

What was she doing before that? 

As she was clearing the fog from her mind, there was another dim light coming from Goten’s room. And she stood in front of it. Starring.

Goten was safe in his crib sleeping just as soundly as his big brother. But on the floor, sitting cross legged as if it was perfectly normal to do so, was Piccolo. He wasn’t meditating or ‘super-not-napping- meditating but...starring, almost contemplating, a sock. One of Goten’s socks. The little thing looking ridiculously small sitting in that man’s giant fingers.

And recognition hit her face.

Piccolo slowly lifted his head up to hers. Saying nothing as he balled up the sock and rested his hands in his lap. They stared at each other. Just...waiting for the other to do anything. 

Chi-Chi opened her mouth, only to close it. Her brain wanted to say so many things that, in the moment, might not be tasteful of seem not-creepy but, she settled on something to say eventually.

“Goodnight, Piccolo.”

She held the blanket around her tighter.

His voice, low and deep, replied in turn,

“Goodnight.”

With a nod, she walked further down the hallway. A mass of feelings starting to bubble up in her mind but, at least for that day, she could dwell more on them after some rest. Knowing full well she’ll dream about that soft, rumbling voice that night, she rested her head to sleep.


End file.
